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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is a lousy politician and an even worse human being. For folks who write a political blog, like we do, that's two strikes and you're out. We don't need to hide the fact that we hold him in very low esteem.
Last week, we had an item about the latest expression of his fascistic impulses. To review, he wants to defeat the Florida abortion amendment. Consequently, he does not like commercials that advocate for the amendment. And he decided to abuse his powers to try to shut the commercials down, having his hacky surgeon general, the vaccine quack Joseph Ladapo, send letters threatening to prosecute stations that dared air such ads.
It should come as no surprise that, in a state where the executive branch is threatening to jail its opponents, the recipients of the letters headed straight to court for relief. And yesterday, Judge Mark Walker, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, issued a restraining order in which he smacked DeSantis upside the head. The Judge writes:
Plaintiff's argument is correct. While Defendant Ladapo refuses to even agree with this simple fact, Plaintiff's political advertisement is political speech—speech at the core of the First Amendment. And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the bedrock principle that the government cannot do indirectly what it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech it disfavors. The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is "false."
Truth be told, this case was enough a slam dunk that we, with no law schooling in our background whatsoever, could have written the decision.
That said, this story didn't become the schadenfreude story of the week just because DeSantis lost (as much as that helps). No, it's the snark that the obviously irritated judge worked into his ruling, just in case the folks running the Sunshine State did not grasp his meaning: "To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it's the First Amendment, stupid." Once we saw that, there was no way this wasn't going to be the pick for this space.
Incidentally, it's not just Walker who is offended by DeSantis' and Ladapo's disregard for the Bill of Rights. John Wilson was the top lawyer for the Florida Department of Health, and thus the person responsible for weighing in on the legality of the strong-arm tactics being pursued by the Governor and the Surgeon General. Yesterday, he quit. His letter of resignation is very diplomatic, but it's not too hard to read between the lines and figure out that while he's anti-choice, he's also anti-abuse of government power.
And so, once again, Ron DeSantis ends up with egg on his face—and we can't think of a better place for it. Though he better be careful, or it will drip on those handsome white boots of his. We understand that eggs make a person's lifts extra slippery. (Z)